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In Crowd’s Euphoria, No Clear Leadership Emerges

Many of the protesters demanding the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt paused for Muslim prayers in Tahrir Square in Cairo on Monday.Credit
Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

CAIRO — In the tableau of revolution that Tahrir Square has become, the very passions that have inspired the protests here were countered Monday by a question that could determine whether President Hosni Mubarak relinquishes nearly 30 years in power: Who will speak for people who have never had a voice?

The defiance of Mr. Mubarak’s government only grew Monday, as the protests in the sprawling square swelled from hundreds before dawn to tens of thousands by dusk. Mothers hoisted children on their shoulders shouting the refrain of this revolt: “The people want the fall of the government!”

Calls went out for even bigger crowds on Tuesday, as organizers sought to gather momentum and the government reeled. But across the square, trepidation inflected the growing euphoria. Many protesters suggested that the coming days will test whether a popular uprising outpaces an inchoate opposition that has so far failed to keep up.

“This is what worries me,” said Gasser Abdel-Razeq, a human rights activist who joined the ecstatic crowds of men and women, the religious and secular, rich and poor, but first and foremost, the young and dispossessed. “Where does this go? How do you create a leadership that can represent these people without dividing them?”

His questions represent the challenge of the moment not only for Egypt but also for the rest of the Arab world — how to negotiate a transition from American-backed governments that have often proved most successful in eliminating any organized alternative to their rule. It is all the more difficult in Egypt, where many of the protesters have demanded nothing short of a dismantling of the status quo. Over the past two days here, the Muslim Brotherhood has emerged with a far higher profile in the protests, but its presence is often more contentious than unifying. Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel laureate and government critic, named as a consensus figure for a loosely aligned opposition, generates as much resentment as support.

Some protesters said they did not need leadership for an uprising that was about sweeping away the old order. Others wondered whether anyone could articulate the frustrations of a generation that, as events rapidly unfolded Monday night, was closer than ever before to forcing Mr. Mubarak’s fall.

“We don’t want ElBaradei or the Muslim Brotherhood, and we don’t want the ruling party,” said Mohammed Nagi, a 30-year-old protester. “You feel like everyone is walking on his own, speaking for himself, because there’s no group that represents us.”

In short, he said, “We don’t want what we have.”

The fact that the movement lacks, in the words of one activist, “clear structure and clear leadership,” has helped it captivate the Arab world, which has greeted it with a mix of exhilaration and romanticism. One newspaper devoted almost its entire issue to it.

“People are learning that the yearning for freedom, for dignity, for justice and for employment is a legitimate ambition,” said Sateh Noureddine, a prominent Lebanese columnist. “This is a historic moment, and it is teaching the Arab world everything. They are learning that if they take to the streets they can accomplish their goals.”

In the carnivalesque atmosphere of Tahrir Square, also known as Liberation Square, protesters speak in the superlatives of rebellion, echoing sentiments pronounced across the region. “Revolution on the Nile,” read the headline Monday in Al Akhbar, a leftist Lebanese newspaper. “A mummy wrestles with the living.”

But even the most sober speak about the transformation that an only week-old uprising has had on a people so long treated as subjects, not citizens, by a state that saw elections as a scripted exercise in affirmation.

In the face of looting and arson, neighborhoods organized into popular defense committees, including young men armed with everything from horsewhips to the hoses of water pipes. Though they coordinated with the army, they managed to secure, largely on their own, block after block in the wake of the utter collapse of police authority on Saturday.

“The popular committee protected us better than the police did,” said Mohammed Maqboul, a lawyer in the square. “Twenty-four hours a day, they guarded our streets.”

In a sun-basked square, that sense of empowerment has radiated across the downtown, where volunteers passed out free wafers, tea and cake. Youths swept streets, organized security and checked identification at checkpoints in a show of popular mobilization that any transitional government will at least have to acknowledge.

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“For the first time, people feel like they belong to this place,” said Selma al-Tarzi, a 33-year-old film director.

The very energy of the uprising has unsettled many in a city that fell into a long somnolence after the climactic events of a generation before — the nationalization of the Suez Canal, wars with Israel and then an uncertain peace. And it has rattled many, too, who counter the protester’s embrace of revolution with another term: balbala, meaning confusion and chaos.

“We need patience,” shouted Atef Ammar, a lawyer who argued with protesters. “The result of this democracy you brought is to impose the thugs and looting on us.”

“You’re with the regime!” one protester accused him.

“Why can’t we wait?” he replied. “We don’t want the country to collapse.”

Men started shouting at him, pushing and shoving.

“The entire system has to go,” yelled Mustafa Ali, a protester. “Not just Mubarak!”

Indeed, the opposition, along with virtually every representative of civil society here, has been overwhelmed by the pace and scale of the uprising. Youthful organizers have sought to push forth the protests, joining older opposition figures who hope to negotiate with the government, but many of them admit their influence on the crowds is negligible.

“I feel like ElBaradei is not an Egyptian,” declared one protester, Seraggedin Abu Rawash. “He lived his whole life abroad, and now he’s trying to ride the revolution.”

Mr. Rawash, a 21-year-old engineer, is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which has assumed a far more prominent role in the protests since Sunday, organizing prayers in the square and largely keeping to themselves. The mantra of their followers is that they will participate, not lead.

“We’re part of the people,” Mr. Rawash said. But even their presence has led to debates among the more secular over the intentions of the group, which is still Egypt’s most powerful opposition, and whether to engage them.

“No to the Brotherhood, no to the parties,” one chant went Monday. “Revolution, of the youth.” A banner read, “A revolution of the people, not the parties.”

For now, one of the most spectacular popular movements in Egypt’s history is counting on the energy of the street, even as the government opened the door to negotiations.

“If the youth continue to take to the street when they feel the revolution is going to be taken away from them, I have no worries about the regime, the army or the Brotherhood,” Mr. Abdel-Razeq said. “If it means a better life, a better Egypt, a better job, they will.”

Nada Bakri contributed reporting from Beirut.

A version of this article appears in print on February 1, 2011, on Page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: In the Euphoria of the Crowd, No Party or Leader Unifies the Opposition. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe